November 16, 2013 ©Homer Kizer
Commentary — From the Margins
An Infallible Text
[Part Six]
7.
Only in a Sophist novel does Pentecost represent the first disciples receiving the holy spirit; for Pentecost [meaning fifty] represents in type the completion of the harvest of firstfruits, not the beginning of the harvest as represented by the giving of the spirit on the day when Jesus was resurrected from death (see John 20:22). The harvest of firstfruits began with the reality of the Wave Sheaf Offering fifty days before Pentecost; the harvest of firstfruits began with Christ Jesus being raised from death and accepted by God the Father. Only then could the harvest of firstfruits begin; could new grain be gathered into barns, with the harvest concluding with the Feast of Weeks, aka Pentecost. Thus, in the chirality of Hebrew style, the Wave Sheaf Offering represents the physical beginning of a spiritual end, that end being the Feast of Firstfruits; i.e., the waving of two loaves of leavened bread made from grain of the early harvest. And with the beginning and the end forming mirror images of each other, the first sheaf [handful] of grain waved before God—and accepted by God—without being thrashed or milled forms the shadow and type of the end of the harvest of firstfruits, grain in the form of finely beaten flour baked into two loaves of bread and waved before God, with leavening [yeast] representing sin that is killed by the heat of baking (in type, by the fire used to roast the Passover lamb whole). Plus, the first sheaf of waved grain is “in” the two waved loaves that completes the harvest of firstfruits through the indwelling of Christ Jesus in His disciples.
Salvation came with the giving of the spirit, that is the spirit of God [pneuma Theou] in the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou]. Salvation came with the first disciples receiving the holy spirit [pneuma ’agion] when Jesus “breathed” on ten of them on the same day as when He ascended to the Father as the accepted Wave Sheaf Offering for Israel, the nation to be circumcised of heart. It is always error, albeit a common error, to believe or to teach that the holy spirit was initially received fifty days later. That teaching is the work of a Greek novelist, who has his “Peter” declare what is obviously not true, that the alleged events of that day of Pentecost represented the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy … where were the wonders in heaven: “‘I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke’” (Joel 2:30)?
In the Greek Esther, a short novella with a beginning, middle, and end in all of its common forms, the Book of Esther begins with Mordecai’s vision that has two dragons battle while wonders in heaven occur and ends with the frame of Mordecai’s interpretation of his vision, which he believed was about his and Haman’s struggle, a battle between a representative of Israel (a descendant of King Saul) and a representative of Macedonia [Greece], a proxy battle for being “second father” in the Persian Empire, the then earthly face of spiritual Babylon. But in Mordecai’s interpretation, the wonders in heaven are neglected as they are in the author of Luke and Acts’ interpretation of Joel’s vision, with apparently no understanding of why these wonders would occur—
If the non-physical spirit of God is poured out on all flesh, what simultaneously occurs when these wonders in heaven and earth are seen (Joel 2:28), instead of this invisible breath of God [pneuma Theou] being seen in the bodily form of a dove as John the Baptist saw the breath of God when it descended upon and entered into Jesus (Mark 1:10), what will be seen are wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. Otherwise, the world would be baptized in the divine breath of God—baptized in spirit—but would not know what had occurred to each person whose “human nature” will be changed in the same manner as the animal natures of the great predators will be changed (Isa 11:6–9). The wonders in heavens are seen for similar reasons as John saw the dove, that is as confirmation of prophesied events. Therefore, for these wonders not to be seen is confirmation that these prophesied events have not yet occurred, not something Greek authors necessarily realized; thus, they neglected these signs in heaven that are the visible indicators of invisible, spiritual happenings.
If Mordecai’s vision was of God, his vision remains to be fulfilled: there will be a great battle between kings, that of Israel and that of Greece, with Christ Jesus being king of Israel and with the two witnesses representing Christ in the Affliction and with the four beasts of Daniel chapter seven representing the King of Greece, whose first and great king was broken (Dan 8:8) at the Second Passover liberation of Israel—broken because he was an uncovered firstborn.
A demonic king is not a literal “horn” on the head of a ram or billy goat …
In John’s Gospel, Jesus told His disciples that He had only spoken to them in figures of speech (John 16:25), and if He only spoke to them in figures of speech [metaphors and metonymic expressions], His words should not be taken “literally” but figuratively; for when struck (John 18:22), Jesus didn’t turn the other cheek but challenged the one striking Him, saying, “‘If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong; but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?’” (v. 23). So in actual application, to turn the other cheek will have a person walk in this world as Jesus walked, and will have the person non-violently challenge the justification for abuse.
Every human person is the slave of whom or of what the person serves. Paul wrote, “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (Rom 6:16). So the person who serves the flesh [used metonymically] and the desires of the flesh is the slave of the flesh and of him who rules the flesh, the Adversary, the present prince of this world, the prince of the power of the air. And it is for this reason—to be slaves of the flesh—that every person is humanly born as a son of disobedience (Eph 2:2–3), consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32). It is for this reason that every human person, including natural Israelites, is born as an unredeemed Gentile far from God … yes, this includes the descendants of natural Israel as Paul expressed in his epistle of the Galatians:
For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. (Gal 4:22–25)
Physically (that is, according to the flesh), natural Israelites are not the children of Hagar, but also, they are not born according to spirit: they are only “naturally” born. Thus, they are to sons of God the Father—sons born through the indwelling of the breath/spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou]—as the fleshly bodies of human persons were to the God of Abraham, the concept producing Matthew’s Jesus saying to Sadducees, “‘And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? He is not God of the dead, but of the living’” (Matt 22:31–32).
Once-born human persons still have dead inner selves/souls even when physically alive; thus Matthew’s Jesus said to the one who would have followed Him after burying his father, “‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead’” (Matt 8:22). But twice-born human persons have living inner selves/souls, the inner self made alive through receipt of a second breath of life, the breath of God [pneuma Theou] in the breath of Christ [pneuma Christou] — and once the inner self is brought to life through receipt of the holy spirit [pneuma ’agion], the inner self is no longer subject to sin and death but is free to keep the Law; for the person will have received the mind of Christ even though the inner person as an infant son of God is too young spiritually to comprehend the things of God.
Sigmund Freud wrote of “psychological resistance” in which a person knows what the person should do, but the person is unwilling (consciously or subconsciously) to change the person’s behavior, or even accept memories of relevant experiences. The person simply will not go where the person needs to go—and so it will be with the vast majority of Christians following the Second Passover liberation of Israel, when through being filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God, all self-identified Christians will be liberated from indwelling sin and death. Every Christian will then have the Law written on hearts and placed in minds so that all know the Lord; every Christian will receive the mind of Christ, the means through which the Christian will be liberated from indwelling sin and death. And having the mind of Christ should cause every Christian to truly walk in this world as Jesus walked, which in turn will have the Christian keeping the Commandments because the Christian believes God.
But that isn’t what will happen.
Instead of every Christian, once liberated from indwelling sin and death, keeping the Law because the Christian wants-to and can, the majority of Christians will rebel against God because of their psychological resistance to change and to all things that are seemingly Jewish, especially keeping the Sabbath, the mark of who is of God in the Affliction, the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years of tribulation. Because every Christian will have the mind of Christ and will know God and the things of God, the Christian who returns to lawlessness/sin will have no “covering” for his or her transgressions except the person’s own death: once the Christian is filled with spirit and has the mind of Christ, the Christian will no longer be under grace, the garment of Christ Jesus’ righteousness. The Christian will be fully able to clothe him or herself with his or her own obedience.
Grace ends with the Second Passover liberation of Israel. Everything Paul wrote about grace will have been superseded by the changed dynamics of the spiritual resurrection of the Body of Christ, the Christian Church, with this temple of God brought to life though being filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God.
The preceding begins introducing a concept most Christians will be unwilling to accept: the author of Hebrews wrote, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8); therefore, the means by which salvation is extended to people ought not change, or so goes carnal logic. But this Greco/Roman logic runs contrary to Hebrew style thought and literary construction, which will have the beginning of a matter and its end forming non-symmetrical mirror images of one another, with the beginning and end [two narrative phenomena] forming one happening. Everything between the beginning and end is wasp-waisted fill; thus, Hebrew style literary construction is as looking at phenomena through a holographic lens.
Natural Israel is “born” through the indwelling of the breath of the mother in a fetus that is a child from conception, with this breath going all the way back to Eve in whom the breath of the first Adam dwelt, the breath that Elohim [singular in usage] breathed into the nostrils of this man of mud (Gen 2:7). And it was His breath—the breath He had as Yah, the deity that created all things physical (cf. John 1:1–3; 3:16; 17:5; Phil 2:5–8)—that He received back when He [‘o Logos who was Theos and who was pros ton Theon in primacy/arche] entered His creation as His unique Son … when the Creator of this world gave up His life, His glory, to enter into His creation as His unique Son, He had no breath of life except that which He had previously breathed into the nostrils of the man of mud, the first Adam, with this breath of life transported from Adam to Eve and then from Eve through many mothers to Mary from whom He received it back, not as heavenly breath but as physical breath. He did not again receive heavenly breath until He rose from the death represented by baptism and the divine breath of God the Father [pneuma Theou] descended in the bodily form of a dove and entered into Jesus (Mark 1:10).
Referencing what I AM told Moses in Exodus 4:22, natural Israel was the firstborn son of the Creator, the God of earthly Abraham, but natural Israel was not the firstborn son of God the Father …
The monotheism of natural Israel prevents this people from knowing the Lord [YHWH] (Jer 31:34) or coming under the New Covenant; for natural Israelites have high psychological resistance to learning what their language reveals to them … Elohim is the regular plural of Eloah, which deconstructs to <El + ah (breath or aspiration)>. In Elohim, the number forming the plural is unlimited, but in the Tetragrammaton YHWH, that number is two: <YH> + <WH>, with /H/ representing aspiration or breath. And with acceptance of what the language reveals, the thematic prologue to John’s Gospel becomes understandable: Christ Jesus and His disciples are the firstborn son of God the Father, the God of dead ones not living ones. It is natural Israel that is the firstborn son of Yah, the God of Abraham, ó Logos who created all things physical (John 1:3). However, ó Logos did not give heavenly life to earthly nephesh, who were without an indwelling vessel to hold the glory of God, the bright fire representing life outside of space-time. Thus, the situation developed that had Hagar, mother of Ishmael, being to Sarah as the first Eve was to the last Eve, the Christian Church, or as the first Adam was to the last Adam, a life-giving spirit (1 Cor 15:45).
But this isn’t what the prologue to John’s Gospel reveals, is it? Or is it?
The deity who would enter His creation as His unique Son was the Logos, the one who was God [Theos] and who was with/of [pros] the God [ton Theon] in primacy [arche], but who didn’t count equality with the God a thing to be grasped [tightly held onto] (Phil 2:6) and therefore gave up life, His life outside of His creation (divested Himself of His divinity) and entered His creation where He received back the breath of life He had given to the first Adam, this physical breath of life having been carried for many generations from Eve to Mary. And with the God of Abraham, the Creator of all things physical, leaving His glory in heaven and entering His creation as His unique Son, the one with whom He had held equality [i.e., WH] became His God, for He was from human birth until baptism, numbered among the dead, with baptism representing the formalization or spiritual acknowledgement of being spiritually dead. Hence in Matthew’s Gospel, Matthew’s Jesus tells John the Baptist to baptize Him to fulfill all righteousness (Matt 3:15), not because He needed to repent of transgressions of the Law.
Judaism’s monotheism hinders this ideology from understanding that their resistance to learning actually stems from Israel’s rebellion against the Lord at Mount Sinai when the people insisted that Aaron make for them a gold calf, cast from their earrings that both heard the words spoken from atop Mount Sinai and heard wearers’ promise to keep all the words written in the Book of the Covenant. The prohibition against kindling a fire on the Sabbath represents a prohibition against having life in the presence of God, a prohibition enforced by Judaism’s monotheism that has for this people become the idol that they serve, the idol to whom they are enslaved … Islam is also enslaved by this idol; for Islam, like Judaism, worships a deity that long ago shifted shapes, taking on “the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:7), then dying on the stake at Calvary “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (vv. 10—11).
Neither Islam nor Judaism will confess that Christ Jesus is Lord—and now, many Sabbatarian Christians will not confess that Jesus is Lord, for they will not utter the name Jesus.
In metaphor, Sarah’s dead womb represents the Garden Tomb: Isaac wasn’t a naturally conceived son of Abraham and Sarah, but the promised son. Jesus wasn’t a natural human being when He left the Garden Tomb, but the glorified Firstborn Son of God the Father, the Son that will always be the First of the firstfruits of God, with all firstfruits being firstborn sons of God because of the indwelling of the mind of Christ in the spirit/breath of Christ [pneuma Christou] that gives heavenly life to the firstfruits.
Jesus lives in every person born of spirit; in every person in whom eternal [heavenly] life dwells.
But because of psychological resistance to learning, to accepting that Christians have falsely worshiped Christ Jesus for centuries, to accepting that the greater Christian Church has been an active agent of the Adversary since the spiritual death of the Body of Christ at the end of the 1st-Century, those who should be first into the kingdom of the heavens [Christians] will be last if they are even there—and this ought not be …
As President Obama lied—yes, lied for political reasons—to the American people, telling them that if they liked their health care, that if they liked their doctor, under the Affordable Health Care Act, they could keep their insurance coverage; they could keep their doctor, period, when neither was true, a great many Christian pastors and theologians have for centuries lied to their parishioners for political reasons, telling their parishioners that they are humanly born with immortal souls (the lie the serpent told Eve in the Garden), that their parishioners will not surely die if they eat from the Tree of Knowledge, that their parishioners are under grace and therefore are not to keep the Law. For fiscal reasons and certainly for political reasons, Christian pastors deliberately lie today to their parishioners, who, with very few exceptions, are not born of spirit, nor are even able to come to Christ Jesus (see John 6:44).
Many of President Obama’s supporters refuse to accept the reality that he lied to the politic to get his signature healthcare bill passed in the Senate. Sobeit. It is of far greater concern that so many Christian pastors lie to their parishioners about the time-specific concept of grace, the garmenting of Jesus’ 1st-Century disciples in His righteousness … Christians within the greater Church are spiritually as ancient Israel was physically when in Egyptian slavery: Christians are with, again, very few exceptions spiritually enslaved by the Adversary, thus they remain as they were humanly born, sons of disobedience consigned to disobedience so that God can have mercy on them in a Second Passover liberation of Israel. And Christians’ psychological resistance to learning prevents them today from accepting the reality that on a second Passover day in the near future, death angels will again pass over all the land, slaying firstborns (biological and spiritual) not covered by the blood of the Lamb of God. Christians within the greater Church simply refuse to accept the possibility that because they do not take the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the dark portion of the 14th day of the first month (the night when Jesus was betrayed), they as firstborns or their firstborns will be suddenly slain by angels of God to pay the redemption price for greater Christendom.
Christ Jesus at Calvary paid the redemption price for the Elect, not for all of the world. He paid the redemption price so that the Elect can warn greater Christianity about what is to come. But in the carnal example of President Obama lying about being able to keep one’s doctor, period, under his healthcare bill, there were many pundits and conservative political commentators who warned Americans that what the President was saying about Obamacare was simply not true. Some people heeded warnings. More did not. And the President in a referendum on Obamacare was reelected in 2012—Americans will receive that for which they voted.
Christians in the Second Passover liberation of Israel, followed by the Affliction (the first 1260 days of the seven endtime years of tribulation), will receive their just due for not challenging what they have long heard from pulpits, sad as that will prove to be.
As an example, the uncovered adopted son of Glenn Beck, a firstborn, will be suddenly slain at the Second Passover liberation of Israel—and Beck, like many Christians who believe they are doing everything right will become bitter and turn against the people of God who keep the Commandments and have the testimony of Jesus. Unless Beck repents—within Christendom, he certainly isn’t alone in needing to repent and overcome his psychological resistance to learning—he will end up losing his salvation because of bitterness that will cause him to do what he contemplates in the darkest recesses of his mind, thoughts that alcohol couldn’t block, thoughts that once nearly destroyed him, thoughts that remain with him to this day, thoughts akin to those too many Christians have, thoughts that originate with the Adversary.
For the record, no, we as Christians cannot all get along. The Christian who truly has the mind of Christ has no fellowship with the Christian who remains a son of disobedience. Yes, the two can live in the same community, but they really cannot share the same house and they truly cannot share the same bed; thus, Paul wrote that an unmarried Christian can marry, but only in the Lord (1 Cor 7:39), that is, only to a Believer …
But who is a Believer? Who truly believes God? Who will walk in this world as Jesus walked? Who will live as an outwardly uncircumcised Judean?
Many Christians want to serve Christ Jesus, want to do a good work for Christ, want to be about the Lord’s business, but what is the Lord’s business today? What was the Lord’s business prior to the first Passover liberation of Israel? Was He not listening to the prayers, the cries of anguish of Israel? What is recorded?
During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew. (Ex 2:23–25)
But the Lord did not immediately intervene because it was not time for Him to do so.
Today, Christians, like ancient Israelites, cry out to Christ Jesus for help. They plead for rescue. They moan and groan because of the unrighteous ways of this present age that is about as far from God as an age can get. And Christ hears their words, but He doesn’t act: it isn’t time for Him to act. He waits spiritually as He waited physically while Lazarus lay dead in the tomb (see John 11:1–46).
In Egypt, even after the Lord set His hand to intervene by calling Moses whom He had prepared for this day, the people saw no relief until the midnight hour of the night on which the Passover lamb was sacrificed, roasted whole and eaten while Israel had loins girded, feet shod, and staffs in hand—and so will it be for Christians, who will not see God intervene in a mighty way until a spiritual midnight hour when humanity can get no farther away from the light that is Christ. This intervention will be on the Second Passover, a second Passover day that has the 15th day of the second month [Iyyar] being on a Thursday after the pattern of Jesus as the Passover Lamb of God being sacrificed on Wednesday, the 14th day of the first month that is in retrospect the 14th day of the second month on rabbinical Judaism’s calculated calendar for the year 31 CE, even though the calculated calendar wasn’t then in existence … the preceding is convoluted enough that it needs unpacked: the irony of the temple being razed by Romans in 70 CE is that natural Israel needed to come up with a calendar that it could use to set dates for the annual holy days—and a calculated calendar was devised, then improved upon centuries later. This calculated calendar begins in the fall of the year; so on years when it is necessary to add an extra month to the calendar, that second month of Adar is added in the year following when it should have been added if the calendar started in the spring with the first new moon crescent following the spring equinox. Therefore, in the year 31 CE, that had the first month begin (as established by direct observation) on the 12th of April (Julian) has on Judaism’s calculated calendar the second month [Iyyar] beginning on this day: the observed calendar was, in the year when Jesus was crucified, a month later than Judaism’s calculated calendar has the month. Thus, according to Judaism’s calculated calendar, Jesus was crucified on the 14th day of the second month when in reality He was crucified on the 14th day of the first month on the directly observed calendar.
The glorified Jesus is the Head of every Christian, and therefore the Head of the Body of Christ … if the Head is crucified as the Passover Lamb of God on the 14th day of the first month that is on Judaism’s calendar the 14th day of the second month, then the Body of Christ that must necessarily die as the Head died will be resurrected as the Head was resurrected at the end of the 17th day of the first month that is the second month on Judaism’s calendar, with this 17th day being the weekly Sabbath. And as Jesus was accepted by God as the reality of the Wave Sheaf Offering shortly after dawn on the 18th day of the first month, so too will the Body of Christ be resurrected from death after the 17th day of the second month according to Judaism’s calendar.
Note the following: “In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened” (Gen 7:11). And note what Matthew’s Jesus declared: “‘For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man’” (Matt 24:37–39).
Again, the irony is that without the sacking of earthly Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, Israel’s calendar would have continued to be established by direct observation, but without the temple, the date of annual Sabbaths had to be set by astronomical calculations. Thus, because of a differing reading for when years should begin, the House of Judah [the southern kingdom] and the House of Israel [the northern kingdom] began their calendars six months out of sync—and this ancient differing reading of Scripture permits the Passover as kept by the Church of God and the second Passover as kept by Judaism to fall in the same month on years like 2010 and 2013. But for the 2520 day count of the seven endtime years of tribulation to align itself so that Christ Jesus’ return as the Messiah will be at the beginning of months, additional days must be added, with thirty of these additional days coming from the Second Passover liberation of Israel occurring on the second Passover in a year not like 2010 or 2013, but instead like 2011 or 2014 or 2017. Thus, in Jesus telling disciples that the end of the age shall be as the days of Noah were—with Jesus only speaking the words that Father gave Him—the Father points disciples to the second Passover, for which the lamb would have been selected on the 10th day of the second month, the day on which Noah entered the Ark:
Then [YJWH] said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground." And Noah did all that [YHWH] had commanded him. Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth. (Gen 7:1–10 emphasis added)
The waters came on the 17th day of the second month.
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This section is as it stands on my computer 35,000 words long, far too long to be put out as one piece. And whereas it had been my intention to end this commentary with this section, that will not prove to be the case—
I have had some back problems stemming from an injury when I was 18 years old and working in Georgia-Pacific’s pulp mill at Toledo, Oregon. I have had since 1976, approximately five inches of spine with wedge-shaped discs. I was told at that time that as I aged, my spine would become sloppy, easily slipping in and out. And that has been the case since early in the 1990s. But until late July this year, this slipping in and out didn’t effect working at things where I could sit. That is no longer the case. I cannot at this time put in ten, twelve hours a day typing, and I’m not getting out as much as I want. However, work is still being done.
In the past, when physical situations interfered with my output of writing, I would discover that I had arrived at a certain theological point [position] before I should have arrived at that location. I suspect that this is presently the case. Those who read will have to judge the matter. But over the next week or so, the 35,000 words that wait being proofed will be put up in three to five thousand word units. And I’ll go from there.
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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."